Plant parasitic nematodes - problems related to clover and organic farming

Organic farming puts new and exciting challenges to the science of nematology. The occurrence of plant parasitic nematodes in organic farming systems needs to be investigated further. Good management strategies for nematodes should include monitoring of the composition and density of nematode populations. This would allow for increased yields and better sustainability of organic farming

A first approach to an axiomatic model of multi-measures

We establish an axiomatic model of multi-measures, capturing some classes of measures studied in the fuzzy sets literature, where they are applied to only one or two arguments

Named Entity Recognition in Electronic Health Records Using Transfer Learning Bootstrapped Neural Networks

Neural networks (NNs) have become the state of the art in many machine learning applications, especially in image and sound processing [1]. The same, although to a lesser extent [2,3], could be said in natural language processing (NLP) tasks, such as named entity recognition. However, the success of NNs remains dependent on the availability of large labelled datasets, which is a significant hurdle in many important applications. One such case are electronic health records (EHRs), which are arguably the largest source of medical data, most of which lies hidden in natural text [4,5]. Data access is difficult due to data privacy concerns, and therefore annotated datasets are scarce. With scarce data, NNs will likely not be able to extract this hidden information with practical accuracy. In our study, we develop an approach that solves these problems for named entity recognition, obtaining 94.6 F1 score in I2B2 2009 Medical Extraction Challenge [6], 4.3 above the architecture that won the competition. Beyond the official I2B2 challenge, we further achieve 82.4 F1 on extracting relationships between medical terms. To reach this state-of-the-art accuracy, our approach applies transfer learning to leverage on datasets annotated for other I2B2 tasks, and designs and trains embeddings that specially benefit from such transfer.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, 8 table

Detailed and GlobalAnalysis of a Remedial Course's Impact on Incoming Students' Marks

Engineering incoming students are facing great difficulties to overcome first course subjects. To tackle that situation and increase the students’ success a Remedial course in Mathematics was offered to Informatics Engineering freshmen. This study presents a statistical analysis of their results comparing the marks obtained by those joining the course (studio group) versus those who did not participate (control group). ANOVA tests are performed over the students’ marks averages as well as over each subject students marks. These tests show statistically significant differences between both groups, with the studio group consistently outperforming the control group at 99% confidence level in most cases and at more than 92% confidence level in every case

What’s the Point of Silent Blame?

In this article I thoroughly examine Miranda Fricker’s account of blame based on Communicative Blame as a paradigm explanation of the practice by focusing my attention on a non-central case: silent blame. I argue that this kind of instance has not been successfully connected with her selected paradigm case so I propose a different “focal meaning” or rationale to better accommodate it as part of the entire range of cases of the practice of blaming. I begin my argument drawing upon Herbert L.A. Hart’s methodology on central and borderline cases as a more accurate way to address the complex structure of the concept of blame, since this approach is sensitive to borderline cases as well. I also argue that, although marginal, silent blame fulfils a purpose which must too be vindicated. Thus, following Hart’s suggestion on the value of studying borderline cases, I propose a more accurate reframing of the general point of the practice of blame as a mechanism to secure respect for ourselves

La educación moral condorcetiana

Este trabajo pretende analizar las aportaciones de Condorcet, científico, político y una personalidad clave para entender el origen del sistema educativo burgués y del pensamiento pedagógico contemporáneo, a la educación moral del ciudadano, de acuerdo con los fundamentos de la instrucción pública emanados de la revolución francesa y con los postulados teóricos e ideológicos de la Ilustración y de los philosophes ilustrados. Se estudian sus tres obras educativas fundamentales: el Rapport et projet de decret sur l'organisation génerale de l'instruction publique, las Memorias sobre la instrucción pública y el Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, todas ellas desde la concepción de la formación moral como la unión radical de razón y moral o de una moral pensada con una moral vivida, bajo los principios de autonomía, de implicación personal y activa del sujeto y de independencia absoluta de toda influencia o poder. A lo largo de sus escritos Condorcet propone una instrucción moral en los diferentes niveles educativos institucionales, desde la escuela primaria hasta la Sociedad nacional de las ciencias y de las artes, y una educación moral como tarea inacabada, propia de la esfera privada y familiar porque cualquier actividad temporal organizada y promovida por el poder público debe limitarse a la transmisión de conocimientos y principios, evitando la enseñanza de cualquier dogma o doctrina política o religiosa que pusieran en peligro la construcción de una ética universal basada en la razón y en la felicidad. La moral condorcetiana se asienta en un empirismo racional que combina sensibilidad y racionalidad o lo que es lo mismo, la felicidad, la sabiduría y la virtud.This work tries to analyze the contributions of Condorcet, scientist, politician and a key personality to understand the origin of the bourgeois educative system and the contemporary pedagogical thought, to the moral and political education of the citizen, in agreement with the emanated foundations of the public instruction of the French revolution and with the theoretical and ideological postulates of the illustrated Illustration and philosophes. Their three fundamental educative works study: Rapport et projet de decret sur l'organisation génerale de l'instruction publique, the Memories on the public instruction and the Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, all of them from the conception of the moral formation like the radical union of reason and moral or a moral thought with a lived moral, under the principles of autonomy, personal implication and activates of the subject and absolute independence of all influence or power. Throughout his Condorcet writings it proposes a moral instruction in the different institutional educative levels, from the primary school to the national Society of sciences and the arts, and a moral and political education like unfinished, own task of the private and familiar sphere because any temporary activity organized and promoted by the public power must limit the transmission of knowledge and principles, avoiding the education of any dogma or indoctrinates policy or nun that put in danger the construction of a universal ethics based on the reason and the happiness. The moral is based in rational that combines sensitivity and rationality or what it is the same, the happiness, the wisdom and the virtue

Impact of Gamma Radiation on Dynamic RDSON Characteristics in AlGaN/GaN Power HEMTs

GaN high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) are promising next-generation devices in the power electronics field which can coexist with silicon semiconductors, mainly in some radiation-intensive environments, such as power space converters, where high frequencies and voltages are also needed. Its wide band gap (WBG), large breakdown electric field, and thermal stability improve actual silicon performances. However, at the moment, GaN HEMT technology suffers from some reliability issues, one of the more relevant of which is the dynamic on-state resistance (RON_dyn) regarding power switching converter applications. In this study, we focused on the drain-to-source on-resistance (RDSON) characteristics under 60Co gamma radiation of two different commercial power GaN HEMT structures. Different bias conditions were applied to both structures during irradiation and some static measurements, such as threshold voltage and leakage currents, were performed. Additionally, dynamic resistance was measured to obtain practical information about device trapping under radiation during switching mode, and how trapping in the device is affected by gamma radiation. The experimental results showed a high dependence on the HEMT structure and the bias condition applied during irradiation. Specifically, a free current collapse structure showed great stability until 3.7 Mrad(Si), unlike the other structure tested, which showed high degradation of the parameters measured. The changes were demonstrated to be due to trapping effects generated or enhanced by gamma radiation. These new results obtained about RON_dyn will help elucidate trap behaviors in switching transistors